Paranoid Styles: Conservative, Libertarian, and Liberal

I was pinch hitter for Sam Tanenhaus at Cato’s panel on The United States of Paranoia earlier this week—Tanenhaus was waylaid by trouble with Amtrak, so I joined author Jesse Walker and Cato’s own Gene Healy to theorize about conspiracy theories. Here’s the video:

Jonathan Kay’s review of the book for TAC is here. The current issue also features an appreciative take on Jesse’s tome from Bill Kauffman. U.S. of P. is one of the buzz books of the season in our circles.

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Interesting. I became a conspiracy theorist on that very day. 9/11. I didn’t have a pet theory. I just could not believe the official story and was reading conspiracy theories because I wanted to know what really happened.

I firmly believe that 9/11 was a false flag attack. But I no longer talk about or read about it. For a time I was mystified by popular acceptance of the official narrative. I remain mystified. But I accept that for whatever reason, the truth remains unknown. At least to ordinary people like myself.

So. Being a conspiracy theorist, I don’t think the elite were paranoid in their reaction to 9/11. I think they intentionally created fear among the people and intentionally stigmatized and held up to ridicule anyone who questioned them.

And I don’t believe that I am paranoid. I am not afraid. I may be wrong but I am not irrational.

Conspiracy theories generally have bits and kernels of truth in them. The US government was doing war games for Afghanistan for a while, and foreign policy experts continuously talked about the region as being the next source of conflict after the end of the Cold War. US policy is largely influenced by interest groups and NGOs that average people don’t hear about, including foreign policy groups. The government, as reported, also heard evidence of the 9/11 attack beforehand but did not piece it together as a serious and specific threat.

My belief is proponents end up defending them because the mainstream discussion ends up dumbing down everything so much and inserting so much bias into accounts of events, that it ends up seeming exactly like its a ‘conspiracy of interests.’ Then, when you begin to think you know facts that are being occluded from others, you start stretching what ‘conspiracy of interests’ means and imagining complex plots to be possible.

We don’t trust our government. The FDA and CDC are infiltrated by Pharma, the bankers make their own rules, the regulators are sleeping with the regulatees, Monsanto writes the laws pretaining to them, ALEC writes the laws pertaining to most other things, our governors are turning down Medicaid help for the most needy, 80 – 90% in every poll want better gun safety laws but the NRA says no, so no it is, etc. Who in their right mind can then turn around and believe what the government that otherwise is not on our side, is saying? Especially after the WMD/Valerie Plame debacle, there is no sensible reason to believe.

That such a lovably autistic process of logic. Question everything except why the government seems so determine to curtail the 2nd amendment. Your polling data is completely made up but an issue that actually commanded that level of support was a flag burning ban. Are you equally enraged that people can still burn flags.

Bring a real argument and I will discuss. There is noone calling for taking guns. There is no evidence that government in any way wants to curtail the second amendment. That is a delusion shared by fevered minds, ginned up by the NRA. Offer one example, please. One example NOT from someplace like Pajamas What ever.’My’ polling data showed up in every poll that asked the question.I am not at all enraged that people can burn flags; it is a free country (to some extent) still.

LauraNo, you are right on with your logic, except for the gun control part. It’s not too much of a stretch to understand that if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. Unfortunately these days, the outlaws include our own government.

conspiracy theories have some facts at heart. or the appearance of such. drop that issue and look at the explanations. i see the same events or facts enraging left and right( both post across my facepage) the left has a narative about the right while, no surprise, the right sees the same events and facts as proving their own theory of the left. as Dr Jung said of his study of flying saucers, it isn’t about if they are real or not. it is that so many are so interested in them. hence…true or false. ..why so much conspiracy in our weather? will it ever clear? and if not…who do i BLAME for this weather modification conspiracy…

The comments provide a fascinating insight into the mentality. Many are of the form, “Conspiracy theories are silly except for the one I believe in which has a lot of evidence.” This could be gun confiscation, global warning deniers, fundamentalist pseudo-biology, 9/11 trutherism, birtherism, etc.

“For a time I was mystified by popular acceptance of the official narrative. I remain mystified.” WorkingClass, I once sat down and wrote out, in the best objective, good-faith frame of mind that I could summon, the bare minimum that would have to be true if 9/11 was a U.S. government engineered “false-flag attack.” I kept it to a single, declarative sentence, that of course became a multi-clause monster. But grammatical ugliness aside, I wound up with something that was simply, on logical, how-the-actual-world-works terms, not worthy of belief. It’s cut to ribbons by Occam’s Razor. So now you know why one of us, at least, buys the official narrative.

“So. Being a conspiracy theorist, I don’t think the elite were paranoid in their reaction to 9/11. I think they intentionally created fear among the people and intentionally stigmatized and held up to ridicule anyone who questioned them. ”

While I am sympathetic/empathetic to the claims about a 9/11 conspiracy involving the government, the evidence just does not exist to support the advance.

I would agree that authorities used the event to promote agendas. Whether such promotions were cynical and for their own interests despite national interests is hard to sell me. It just mising several components.

I had hoped trhe Prs.Bush would hav limitted the scope of the security protocols, in fact make the temporary, but alas the US public was convined that this was war as opposed to criminal act.